Learning to ride a dirtbike in the Philippines

Although this website has always been about photography, I’ve come to think of it as a personal blog to record different things that are going on in my life. With this in mind I thought that I would introduce you to one of my other hobbies, riding motorcycles.

As a young boy my passion for motorbikes was ignited when my dad took me to the bike show at the NEC in Birmingham and from then on whenever we saw a cool looking bike I always wanted to go and have a look and if I was lucky, get to sit on it.

As soon as I hit 16 years old I spent the small amount of savings I had on a Yamaha DT50 cc bike. I can still remember the absolute joy I got trying to thrash that little underpowered motorbike (my top speed was 47MPH, on a slight downhill).

After riding bikes up to my early 20’s life moved on and I didn’t ride again until I came to the Philippines. I was on Camiguin island, a tiny little place that is basically two volcanoes poking out of the sea, when I saw a Honda XR125 for sale. It reminded me of the dual sport bikes I had when I was 16-18 years old and so on whim, I bought it for the grand total of £1100. At the time I was 32 or 33 and little did I know that buying that little motorbike would lead me down a path to getting back into riding.

Since then I’ve had a number of different bikes but they’ve always been road focussed. Well, at least, my riding has been. I don’t have any experience riding motorbikes off-road but as I get older, I have found myself wanting to explore the backroads and tracks here in the Philippines and so, with that aim in mind, I booked myself on a 1 day off-road riding course with a company up in Cebu city called Philippine Offroad Adventures.

The video below shows some of the riding we did as well as my thoughts on the training. I have been searching for a way to combine my two passions of photography and motorcycles and through my YouTube channel I believe I have found it. So, this year, I will be travelling around the Philippines on my motorbike and taking my camera with me. Hopefully the bike will allow me to explore more away from the tourist areas and allow me to capture the less seen people and places of this country.